The Altruists to Yellowjackets: Seven Streaming Picks for the Week

Netflix launches The Altruists, its ripped-from-the-headlines FTX drama starring Julia Garner and Anthony Boyle, on Thursday 19 November. It leads a week of seven notable streaming releases across Netflix, Paramount+, BBC iPlayer, Prime Video, HBO Max and Disney+.

What is the pick of the week?

In The Altruists, Garner — Netflix's go-to chameleon after Inventing Anna and Ozark — masters another accent and rifles through the wig cupboard to play Caroline Ellison. Anthony Boyle (House of Guinness, Say Nothing) plays Sam Bankman-Fried. The series retells the pair's real-life love affair and the rise and fall of their scandal-hit cryptocurrency, FTX. Next to the likes of HBO Max's The Audacity, the drama can feel a little staid and even dated — nods to Tony Blair and Harry Potter don't help, the reviewer notes. Even so, its cautionary tale of myopic tech idealists fuelled by a love of extreme risk-taking feels rather germane in 2026.

Which shows are returning?

Yellowjackets begins its fourth and final series on Paramount+ from Friday 20 November. The hallucination-heavy, cannibal plane-crash saga faces the question of whether its past and present timelines can come together convincingly — and, a la Lost, whether the writers' room has been winging it for a while. New additions June Squibb and Molly Ringwald join original cast members Christina Ricci and Melanie Lynskey as the teen survivors finally restart their old lives.

The Chosen arrives on Prime Video from Sunday 15 November for its penultimate run. A reported 300 million viewers worldwide have watched the Christian drama's five previous seasons about the life of Jesus of Nazareth. This season draws on blockbuster source material — the crucifixion — with a finale its showrunners modestly dub "a global theatrical event". The series carries an overtly Gospel-centric plot with modern updates: Matthew is autistic, and Mary Magdalene struggles with substance abuse and PTSD.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians returns for a third season on Disney+ from Friday 20 November, based on Rick Riordan's book The Titan's Curse. Walker Scobell's son of Poseidon battles to rescue girlfriend Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries) from the evil Kronos, while attempting to swerve a hex that could trigger the fall of Olympus. Aimed at tweens, it offers ideal family viewing for supersized winter evenings.

What else is new?

Rewarding (BBC iPlayer, out now) is the second Celtic comedy about care workers from the BBC in recent weeks. Quieter than the Dublin-set magical realist romp Tall Tales & Murder, it centres on overwhelmed and under-resourced Belfast support workers Francis and Sinead, played by standup comic Vittorio Angelone and Blue Lights alum Hannah McClean. The sadcom occasionally seems too downbeat for its own good, but it casts disabled and neurodivergent actors in roles that feel largely authentic.

The Hotline (HBO Max, from Thursday 19 November) is a documentary about the Never Use Alone helpline, where volunteers prevent overdoses by staying on the phone while callers use drugs, contacting emergency services if necessary. Where Painkiller and Dopesick showed big pharma's damage at scale, this film takes an intimate look at the drug epidemic that remains the leading cause of accidental deaths in the US.

Melania (Prime Video, from Friday 20 November) extends Brett Ratner's feature-length Melania Trump documentary into a two-episode series: Family and Trust, and Pride and Honor. The original film drew criticism as blatant presidential propaganda — and, perhaps more damningly, as dull, vacuous and downright cringey. The follow-up's reason for existing remains unclear.

With a final-season premiere, a 300-million-viewer franchise and an FTX retelling landing in the same week, viewers face a genuine choice about where to spend their winter viewing hours.